"They are a capable pair of bastards," McBryde acknowledged.
He considered the memo again, then paged ahead to the next screen. He scanned the header on the new memo quickly, then grimaced.
"I see Lajos is bitching again," he said.
"Hard to blame him, really."
Lathorous words were reasonable enough, even sympathetic, but his tone was anything else. He and Lajos Irvine had never gotten along particularly well, and McBryde suspected that at least part of it was Lathorous' yearning to be back in the field. He knew he wasn't going to get there anytime soon, and the fact that Irvine seemed to be agitating for the type of assignment Lathorous wasn't going to get only increased the irritation quotient.
"Actually, I agree with you," McBryde said out loud. "I'm probably as tired of his whining as anyone, but, let's face it, spending your time pretending to be—no, scratch that, actually being—a slave has got to be just about the least appealing assignment Security has."
"Better than getting his ass shot at in the field by those Ballroom yahoos."
There was a certain degree of feeling in Lathorous' response, due, no doubt, to the fact that his own last field assignment's cover had been as a mid-level Manpower executive, and the Audubon Ballroom had almost gotten lucky in his case.
"Agreed." McBryde nodded. "On the other hand, it's the poor bastards pulling Lajos' duty that keep that sort of thing from happening right here on Mesa on a regular basis, you know."
"Oh, I know. I know!" Lathorous shook his head. "And I promise I'll try to make nice to him."
McBryde looked at him for a moment, then shrugged.
"Look, Steve, I know you and Lajos don't exactly get along like a house on fire. How's about I take it over with him for a while? It's not like it would use up a lot of my time, and I could at least reduce your irritation factor a bit. Maybe a few weeks' vacation would actually make him easier for you to take. And, frankly, I could use something besides Simões to worry about."
Lathorous had begun an automatic refusal, but he paused at McBryde's final sentence. He hesitated visibly, then shrugged and gave his friend a slightly sheepish smile.
"If you really mean it, I'll take you up on it," he said. "I know I shouldn't get pissed off with him when he comes in to make his personal reports. And I even know you're right, that what he does is important. It's just something about his attitude. It gets right up my nose, even though I know it shouldn't. And I'm pretty sure he knows I'm getting pissed off with him, even if I try not to show it, and that only gets him even more pissed off. To be honest, I think it's taking the shine off of our joint professionalism, if you know what I mean."
"I know exactly what you mean," McBryde told him with a chuckle. "And don't expect me to take this over permanently, either! But I can at least give both of you a break from each other. After all, that's what an astute manager of personnel resources does, right?"
"Right," Lathorous said with a warm smile. "I know it's only cold, cynical calculation and manipulation on your part. But, anyway, thanks."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
"What are the DNA results from the inspection of . . ." The Mesan System Guard officer looked back at her display for the name of the ship in question. "The Hali Sowle?They should have come back from the lab by now."
The SG was one of Mesa's (many) uniformed security forces, but it was far less punctilious than the majority of its fellows about things like military ritual and formal address.
"I don't know," said her junior partner. "Let me check." Gansükh Blomqvist pulled up a new screen at his own work station, checked for a list, and pulled up yet another screen. Then, spent perhaps half a minute studying the data displayed.
When he was done, his face was creased by a smile that bordered on a leer. "They check out all right, E.D.. But talk about motherfuckers! It seems as if everybody on that piece of crap is closely related. The one married couple—I kid you not—are uncle and niece."
E.D. Trimm shook her head, but made no wisecrack of her own. Unlike Blomqvist, who was newly hired, she'd been employed by the SG for almost four decades. Most of which time, she'd spent in orbit working on ship inspection. Since she'd married another resident of the huge space station eighteen years earlier, she rarely returned to the planet any longer, even on vacations.
Blomqvist thought a freighter crew made up of closely related individuals, especially when marriage was involved, was a subject of derision and wonder. He'd learn, soon enough. A high percentage of the crews of such freighters—"gypsies," they were called, usually small in size and with no regular runs of any kind—were comprised of people related to each other. There were whole clans and tribes out there, working the fringes of the interstellar freight trade. Some of them were so large they even held periodic conclaves; where, among other things, marriages were contracted. There were some powerful incentives to keeping their businesses tightly held, after all.
Unlike her new partner, whom she'd already decided was a jackass, E.D. was not given to much in the way of prejudice—at least, so long as genetic slaves weren't involved. On that subject, she had the same attitudes as almost all freeborn Mesans.
But, unlike Blomqvist, who, despite the benefits of a good education, seemed remarkably incurious about the universe into which he'd been born, E.D. hadactually absorbed what she'd learned as a student in one of Mesa's excellent colleges. Those colleges and universities, of course, were exclusively reserved for freeborn citizens. Mesa didn't forbid slaves to get an education, as many slave societies had done in past. They couldn't, given that even slaves in a modern work force needed to have an education. But the training given slaves was tightly restricted to whatever it was felt they needed to know.
She'd been particularly fond of ancient history, even if the subject had no relevance to her eventual employment.
"Why should tramp freighter crews sneer at the same practices that stood the dynasties of Europe in good stead?" she asked. "To this day, I think the Rothschilds still set the standard, when it comes to inbreeding."
Blomqvist frowned. "Who's Europe? And I thought the name of that dog breed was Rotweiler."
"Never mind, Gansükh." She leaned over him, studying the screen. "Cargo . . . nothing unusual. Freight brokerage . . . okay, nothing odd there."
Blomqvist made a face. "I thought Pyramid Shipping Services was one of those outfits serving the seccy trade."
"It is. And your point being . . . ?"
He said nothing, but the sour look on his face remained. Normally, Trimm would have let it go. But she really was getting tired of Blomqvist's attitudes—and, looked at the right way, you could even argue she was just doing her job by straightening out the slob. Technically, she was Blomqvist's "senior partner," but in the real world she was his superior. And if he didn't realize that, he'd soon be getting a rude education.
"And what would you prefer?" she demanded. "That we insist the sutler trade be serviced by the Jessyk Combine? No—better yet! Maybe we should have Kwiatkowski & Adeyeme handle it."
Blomqvist grimaced. Kwiatkowski & Adeyeme Galactic Freight, one of the biggest shipping corporations operating out of Mesa, was notorious among System Guard officers for being a royal pain in the ass to deal with. Worse than Jessyk, even though they didn't have nearly as much influence with the General Board.